Cheryl Holt Read Online Free PDF Page A

responded.
    “She thinks you walk on water.”
    “She’s mad.”
    “Dreams die hard, Lord Stanton,” she said. “I won’t stand idly by while hers are dashed.”
    There was a lengthy silence, and they tarried in the candlelit room, the noises of the ball scarcely discernible, and he was surprised at how close he felt to her. He sensed that she’d known trauma, had struggled with many ordeals, but had fought her way through, so that she was tough and resilient. What heartbreak had made her so strong?
    He was overwhelmed by an outlandish desire to touch her, and he reached out and traced a finger across her bottom lip. The contact jolted him. Sparks shot down his arm, running from himself into her. The air around them was alive and unsettled, and he seriously pondered leaning down and kissing her. It seemed the normal conclusion.
    She endured the intimate caress, holding perfectly still as he trailed across her chin, down her neck, but as he dipped lower, she lurched away.
    He was shocked. What had been his intent? If she hadn’t moved, would he have gone farther? Might he have fondled her breast? Might he have slipped a hand inside her dress?
    He’d insisted that Rebecca was mad, but perhaps
he
was the one who was deranged. He was no better than a rutting dog.
    Miss Drake was embarrassed, and she fumbled with her deck of cards, stacking them and stuffing them into her purse.
    “You’re always playing cards,” he murmured, unable to devise a more pithy observation.
    “I’m often alone.” She shrugged. “It passes the time.”
    As she voiced the admission, she looked so forlornand tragic, and he was near to comforting her by pulling her into his arms. He was so curious about her, about her past, when he couldn’t deduce why he would be. He didn’t even like her, so why the piqued interest?
    “You
could be my paramour.” The scandalous proposal popped out before he realized he would utter it.
    She gasped. “What did you say?”
    “Despite how you beg and nag, I won’t stop philandering before the wedding. So why not entertain me yourself?”
    The concept was ridiculous, but with an absurd urgency he was desperate for her to agree. He was outrageously attracted to her. They shared an unusual affinity, a type of strident connection about which most people could only dream.
    Sex with her would be extraordinary, like naught he’d experienced prior, and preposterous as it sounded, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Be it wrong, be it crazed, he yearned for it to transpire.
    “No.” She chuckled wearily. “You insult me by asking.”
    “Give me a good reason why you won’t.”
    “Rebecca is my friend. It would be so wicked.”
    “Ah . . . a loyal and moral soul.”
    “I like to imagine that I am.”
    “How refreshing.”
    He stepped in, trapping her against the table. She was positioned so that the front of his body was pressed to her side, his waist to her hip, phallus to thigh. At the exciting proximity his boisterous rod leapt to attention, though she was too unschooled to comprehend how she’d affected him.
    He nuzzled her nape, enchanted by the warmth of her skin, the hint of a subtle perfume, and he was tickledwhen she shivered. She was as enthralled as he was, himself, their physical magnetism blatant and impossible to ignore.
    “Do it for me,” he whispered, on some primal level recognizing that if she refused, he’d be losing out on something grand. “Do it for yourself.”
    Her beautiful eyes troubled, she eased him away. “I met you once, years ago. You don’t recall, do you?”
    “No, I’m sorry.”
    “What you just requested . . .” She halted, not possessing the terminology for salacious discussion. “Why did you suggest it?”
    “Why not?” The comment was flip and cold, but he declined to explain, declined to furnish her with any intimation of how stunning he deemed her to be.
    “Why not indeed?”
    “An affair between us would be wonderful.”
    “I